Archibald MacLeish

After
graduating from Yale, MacLeish entered Harvard Law School. In 1920
he began work as a lawyer for a Boston firm but resigned in 1923 to move
with his wife and children to Paris.

While in Paris he mixed with US ex-pats including
e.e cummings, Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest
Hemingway. He was strongly influenced by the work of
Ezra Pound and T.S.
Eliot. His collections of poetry include The Pot of Earth
(1924), Nobodaddy (1926) and The Hamlet of A. MacLeish
1928).

In 1928 the MacLeish's returned to the United States and settled
on a farm at Conway, Massachusetts. For the next nine years he
worked on Henry Lucc's magazine Fortune.

As time went by MacLeish began to turn
away from his modernist roots and advocated that poets should be
fully involved in society. This was reflected in his acceptance of
public roles such as the Librarian of Congress
1939-44, Assistant Secretary of State 1944-45 and Boylston Professor
of Harvard 1942-1962.

MacLeish also wrote verse dramas including
Panic (1935) and The Fall of the City (1937).